Tonight, my little sister graduated from high school. Tonight she is beginning a whole new chapter of her life. Watching her walk across that stage and accept her diploma, I thought about the past 13 years of her life. Yea, I’m sure it could have been better and I’m sure she has regrets, but it also could have been much, much worse.

Mallory, I am so proud of the woman you have become. Starting today, everything is fresh. New friends, new opportunities, new experiences. You have the abilities and the talents to do whatever you want to do, be whoever you want to be. And you have the love of family backing you up all the way. I am so excited for you to embrace this phase of your life. Learn from your past–both the achievements and the mistakes. Have fun, work hard, and enjoy every single minute. I am in your corner, your loudest cheerleader, and the proudest sister ever. Congratulations on this milestone sis….. the world awaits you!

The summer countdown is on!! There are only 4 and 1/2 days of school left–I could not be more ready for this break! (Insert loud screaming and crazy dancing here). That said, with the coming of summer, I always feel excited about my to-do list and I always make it too long. You know, like this is the summer that I am finally going to catch up on a combined total of 5 years of scrapbooking. And organize our entire house. And do crazy fun, exciting, memory-making things with my girls at least once a week. Plus, we already have several trips planned–twice to the beach and once for a little weekend trip over to Atlanta. On top of all that, this summer, we are hopefully going to be getting ready to build a house.

I say this because, as exciting as summer is, I tend to place too many tasks on my plate of summer. And I usually look back at the start of the school year and think “Wow, where did my summer go? I didn’t accomplish anything!” So my question is, how to fix this situation? Do I set aside one day a week to spend at home, getting things accomplished? More than one? Spend my first entire week checking off my to-do list? Design a Sheldon-like (any Big Bang Theory fans?) weekly schedule: you know, Monday’s are to-do list days, Tuesdays are pool days, Wednesdays are fun-things-for-the-girls days, etc. Just kidding, that weekly schedule would never work for me. I’m too fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants to follow a schedule.

I think I will just post my Summer to-do list right on the fridge so that I will be reminded of it often. That should help…. I’ll go work on that right now. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you updated! Wish me luck =)

Not only is my big girl graduating from Kindergarten, she was picked up in a big ‘ol limosine this afternoon from school! That’s right. At 5 years old. How cool is that? One of her sweet friend’s mom rented the limo, a cake, and put up a huge blow-up bouncy slide for them to have! And yes, in a group of princes she was the only princess, but she loved every minute!